Greetings Fellow Dice Fans!

For this week’s confusing card of the week article, we’re going to take a look atCrush Card Virus: Basic Action Cardfrom the Yu-Gi-Oh! Starter set.

Ruling – Ability

“Knock out one of your monsters in the field to knock out an opponent’s monster up to 1 level higher than yours.“

Cards from the Yu-Gi-Oh! set use the term monster instead of character. Monster from Yu-Gi-Oh! and character are synonymous.

When you use this action die, you must be able to target an opponent’s character die that is the same level or one level higher than your character die that you KO. If you can’t target an opponent’s character die or there isn’t an opposing character die to KO, you can’t use this action die. You can’t use an action die for no effect.

When you KO one of your character dice to use this ability, it is considered to be part of the cost to using this action die. If you are not able to use the action die, you will not be able to KO one of your character dice. If you don’t have a character die to KO, you can’t use this action die.

When you use this action die, if the character die you KO has a When KO’d ability or a keyword that triggers when the character die is KO’d, those abilities will trigger. If you KO an opponent’s die that has a When KO’d ability or a keyword that triggers when the character die is KO’d, those abilities will trigger as well.

Sidekick dice are considered level one character dice. If you KO a Sidekick as part of the cost to play Crush Card Virus, you can target an opposing character die of level one or level two.

Special note about Regenerate – This is a KO replacement effect. If you attempt to use Crush Card Virus and choose one of your character dice with Regenerate and it regenerates successfully, you will not be able to choose an opposing character die to KO. This is because the additional cost of KO’ing a character die was not paid. The action die would be placed Out of Play and not back into your Reserve Pool, because you attempted to activate it and it ‘fizzled’ due to a replacement effect. There isn’t an official ruling for this.

Miscellaneous Card Information

~ Crush Card Virus is a Basic Action Card and does not have an energy type.
~ It does not have an affiliation.
~ It does not have a Max Dice number, instead it says Use: 3 which means you must use exactly three dice for this card.
~ This card is an Common and is #112 of 120.

Opinion

I remember back in the good old days, we would use this card on teams with big When KO’d abilities that we didn’t want to use Blue-Eyes White Dragon on. Bringing BEWD meant we were potentially helping our opponent with the discount Global. Sure, BEWD was way more convenient, but this card could easily tip the scales against players that didn’t bring BEWD but hoped their opponents did.

In the current card pool for Golden Age, I’m not sure if this card would still hold it’s shine against something like BEWD. It possibly could, especially if you’re also using Mister Miracle: Show Must Go On. While he’s active, he gives your action dice the Boomerang keyword, which is really handy at times! It would depend on what other action dice you were using. If you’re using lots of Gear or Continuous action dice, then Mister Miracle probably is not a good idea.

I think it still has some playablility on particular teams, but I believe they need to be specific builds. Also, BEWD Global is still great in Golden Age for its cost reduction and it tends to pull the attention away from these other, more gimmicky type cards. But don’t count Crush Card Virus out completely! If you want a card that can KO your dudes for a When KO’d ability, see if this one works for you.

Opinions on this card? Leave a comment!
Is there a card your confused on? Is there a combo that seems too good to be true? Leave me a comment here or message me on Facebook at Dice Dice Kitty and thanks for reading!

Greetings Fellow Dice Fans!

It’s time for another Top List article! It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these, and this one was suggested by John P. on Facebook.

To celebrate my 100th Confusing Card of the Week article, all of the cards on this list have a collector number of 100 from their respective sets. I was really surprised to see how many good cards were on this list. There is a mix of uncommon and rare cards from ten different sets. But wait, there are currently fourteen sets released that have a #100 card, so what about those other four? Well, they just missed the mark and will end up on the ‘Honorable Mentions’ list.

Now, remember, I’m only comparing the card abilities, stats, etc. of these cards with each other. I am not comparing their other versions.

I based my list off of several different criteria:
~ Is the purchase cost even with the stats and ability?
~ Are the stats in line with the ability?
~ Is the ability useful or is it too situational?
~ Would I play this card today?
~ Can I use this on any team or does it require a specific build?
~ Are the dice pretty? Just kidding! I do like pretty dice, but it’s not necessary.

And by the way, thank you RetroBox. I love using your website. It makes my research go so much faster! I think your site is one the most visited sites on my computer.

Let’s kick this off with the four cards that just missed that tenth place spot.

Honorable Mentions

14. Captain America: Superhero from Uncanny X-Men

Heroic: When fielded, Captain America may pair up with a different Heroic character until the start of your next turn. While Captain America is paired up, he and his partner each gain +4A and +4D.

So, not the worst Heroic ability, but it’s Heroic…

13. Rhino: Persistent Vengeance from Amazing Spider-Man

When fielded, you may KO target Sidekick. Send it to the Used Pile. If your opponent’s Spider-Man is active, you may do this twice instead.

This guy costs too much for his ability.

12. Drow Assassin: Paragon Humanoid from Battle for Faerûn

At the end of the attack step, knock out all adventurers engaged with this character.

His ability is too conditional for most games where there are very few Adventurers used. Though, he is great for in set games. But that’s not enough to make my top ten list.

11. Black Widow: Killer Instinct from Avengers VS X-Men

When fielded, spin one target opponent’s character down to level 1.

Back in the day when all we had was AvX to use, she was great if you didn’t have Tsarina. I even used her instead of Tsarina on several occasions, but now, she seems a little lack-luster compared to the rest of these cards. She does make the top of the ‘Honorable Mentions’ list though!

Top Ten of the 100’s

10. Spectre: Blinded By Sin from War of Light

While Spectre is active, all character dice except Spectre must attack each turn.

So if you’re using this card, you’re likely only buying and fielding this guy. His ability keeps all of those nuisance characters out of the field, unless he’s blanked by a DWiz or the Shriek that’s coming in the Maximum Carnage Team Pack. But, if they’re blanking him, they aren’t going to be able to blank your other dudes! He could be a great decoy, or a great back up win condition. I would say that your team needs to be built around this card and the contingencies that come with him in order to make the team viable. That’s one of the main reasons he’s sitting at the number ten spot. But I still feel like he’s more fun to use than the cards on the Honorable Mentions list.

~ Is the purchase cost even with the stats and ability?They’re about average.
~ Are the stats in line with the ability?Sure.
~ Is the ability useful or is it too situational?I would say it can be useful.
~ Would I play this card today?Maybe.
~ Can I use this on any team or does it require a specific build?I would definitely say that he needs a specific team.
~ Are the dice pretty?They’re okay. They’re easy to read, which is good.

9. Jay Garrick: Guardian of Keystone City from Green Arrow and The Flash

While Jay Garrick is active, the first time you field a BOLT or SHIELD character die each turn, you may take 1 damage and move a die from your Used Pile to your Prep Area (2 dice if the character is BOLT and SHIELD).

Why is this guy better than the many that came before him? Because he’s cheaper to purchase and field, and his ability works with lots of characters in the game. I don’t like that I have to take damage to move the die from my Used Pile to my Prep Area, because life is a very important resource and if I were going to spend it on something, it’s gotta be good. I could see someone pairing this card with Vicious Struggle, but there are better methods for making that Action lethal. I think he’s a good alternative to Reclaim, if you really need your BAC slots, but you need a way to mitigate that damage. I don’t see this card on any Rush/Blitz type teams because if you’re buying a four cost Jay Garrick, you’re not buying your two and three cost rush characters.

I think this card has some potential, but it’s not overflowing with it. I think he’s a good casual play card, but I don’t see him making any competitive lists anytime soon. Maybe a pilot out there can find a good use for him.

~ Is the purchase cost even with the stats and ability?I think his purchase cost is okay, but since he’s a crossover character, I think his level three fielding cost could have been a one instead of a two.
~ Are the stats in line with the ability?Since you want him to stay active, his defense is great.
~ Is the ability useful or is it too situational?It’s useful for what it does.
~ Would I play this card today?Better than a maybe – possibly.
~ Can I use this on any team or does it require a specific build?I don’t think I’d slap Jay on any team of mine, but I think he needs a more fine-tuned build. I don’t think he needs a team dedicated to his ability though.
~ Are the dice pretty?They’re one of my favorites from Green Arrow and The Flash. I love them!

8. Taskmaster: Mimic Anyone from Civil War

When Taskmaster blocks or is blocked, change Taskmaster’s A and D to match that of any target character die in the Field Zone until end of turn. (Each Taskmaster die may target a different die.)

I think this ability is interesting for various levels of play. You could change his stats to help keep him alive, or change them so he’s KO’d. Putting him on a team with dice that have stats like Hulk or Thanos is great, but you want to use a force block Global like Wasp: Fashionista or Giant Spider: Greater Beast to get the use of his ability. Then you want to give him Overcrush so he can deal damage over the blockers.

The more I look at the card, the more unusual he becomes. I would love to see a team build with him that makes the most of his ability. Feel free to share one in the comments if you’ve played him and like him!

~ Is the purchase cost even with the stats and ability?Stats – yes. Ability – depends.
~ Are the stats in line with the ability?Hard to determine that really.
~ Is the ability useful or is it too situational?It’s useful, but also situational. I don’t think it’s too situational, because you can manipulate the conditions of his ability on that card with a Global.
~ Would I play this card today?Maybe, it’s not really my kind of card.
~ Can I use this on any team or does it require a specific build?He could be added to any team really. His ability is reliant on other card abilities.
~ Are the dice pretty?Definitely not. I don’t like the color and his die image is just, okay.

7. Solomon Grundy: Died on a Saturday from Justice League

KO any character of a lower level engaged with Solomon Grundy after damage is dealt.

I like his ability, but I don’t like that I feel I need him on level three all the time. I would not recommend using a Global like Mutation/Polymorph or Giganta because then your opponent can just spin their dudes up to save them from Grundy’s ability. His ability is great if you pair it with Wasp: Fashionista or Giant Spider: Greater Beast.

Those Globals help you get specific characters dice out the field wither through combat damage or Grundy’s ability. And I guess if he’s KO’d while level one or two, it’s not so bad because he could come back next turn at level three.

He also makes for a great blocker, because his stats are good and if he blocks a character with bigger stats on a lower level than his, he can still take them out. He’s not a far reach with his purchase cost either, which is a plus.

~ Is the purchase cost even with the stats and ability?I think it is for the most part.
~ Are the stats in line with the ability?I would like to have seen maybe one more point of defense on all his levels for better survival against multiple blockers, but overall I think it’s fine for single blockers.
~ Is the ability useful or is it too situational?It’s definitely useful, espicially when paired with a force block card. It’s situational only in that it affects lower level character dice, so you want him on level three if at all possible.
~ Would I play this card today?Most likely.
~ Can I use this on any team or does it require a specific build?You could actually put this card on any team with a force block and he would do well. You definitely don’t need the force block, but it helps.
~ Are the dice pretty?Yuck – no way. But they fit his character, so no real complaints. I think a pink sparkly die would look out of place with him. I like his image though!

6. Killer Croc: Out of the Depths from Batman

When fielded, KO all level 1 and 2 character dice with A less than Killer Croc.

So why did this guy beat out the other four cards and make my top ten? His ability paired with his stats could wipe an opponent’s entire Field Zone. His purchase cost is expensive, but I would pay that price to wipe their Field, leaving them open for an attack. This card is easily paired with Small Step for Man from the Superman Wonder Woman Starter.

This puts all characters in the Field Zone at level one, but when you field your Killer Croc, you’re likely taking out all of their characters. You can use a Global like the one on Giganta: Standing Tall to spin your surviving character dice back up. This card has potential and possibilities – it only needs the right pilot and the right build to make it happen.

~ Is the purchase cost even with the stats and ability?Absolutely. If he was a six cost – he’d be too good.
~ Are the stats in line with the ability?Totally. At level one, you’re KO’ing all opposing level one and two dice with an attack of three or less. Seems good to me!
~ Is the ability useful or is it too situational?I’d say it’s very useful, but slightly situational – which there are ways of fixing.
~ Would I play this card today?I would love to play this card – TODAY!
~ Can I use this on any team or does it require a specific build?I don’t think he requires a team built around him, but he may need a team with cost reduction or ramp/churn because he is expensive. But he’ll potentially win you the game if you get him!
~ Are the dice pretty?Totally not. I am not a fan of the color of these dice, but I get why they chose the colors. I do really like his dice image though.

5. Superwoman: Amazonian from World’s Finest

If you spend at least BOLTBOLTBOLT to purchase a Superwoman die, immediately roll that die and place it into your Reserve Pool.Global: Pay 1. You may convert any amount of your energy to BOLT this turn.

So, the only thing holding this card back from making it any higher on the list is her level three fielding cost. I think a two would have been fine because her defense is low. Killer Croc is a two to field on his level three side and his stats are 7A/7D. I definitely don’t think a two fielding cost would break this card at all. I do like her ability, especially if I’m hoping for energy to buy more of her or other dice.

Her Global is the shining point of her card though. This Global allows you to keep your energy on it’s current face and spend it as that energy, or spend it as a Bolt. The Global cost one generic energy too, making it a very handy energy fixing tool for Bolt-centered teams.

~ Is the purchase cost even with the stats and ability?Yes, but her level two and three fielding cost are high.
~ Are the stats in line with the ability?They aren’t as good as I’d like them to be. I’m not asking for zero and one fielding costs across all levels, but a three is a little steep for this type of ability. Her Global is what shines the most.
~ Is the ability useful or is it too situational?The ability is useful, but too situational.
~ Would I play this card today?I have definitely played this card and her other versions. I would play it on the right team.
~ Can I use this on any team or does it require a specific build?She doesn’t need a specific build, but building around her is helpful.
~ Are the dice pretty?They’re colored thematically and they have a pretty shimmering swirl. I also like her die image.

4. Sangan: Sacrificial Fiend from Yu-Gi-Oh!

When this monster gets knocked out, you may pull two dice from your bag. If both are monsters, put them into your prep area; otherwise return them to your bag.

I like this guy a lot in Golden Age. There are so many ways to manipulate the dice in your bag, not mention, KO a character. He’s got low enough defense numbers on all levels that your opponent may not want to attack into him or block him. You can easily KO him with Magic Missile/Unstable Canister, Fabricate, or Blue-Eyes.

I’ve used this card in the past and I like him. There are other ways to prep dice, but this could be more attuned to someone’s play style than the other cards.

~ Is the purchase cost even with the stats and ability?Yes, he’s easy to KO and you can manipulate your bag to increase the chances of drawing character dice.
~ Are the stats in line with the ability?Definitely.
~ Is the ability useful or is it too situational?It’s definitely useful, but may require the right timing.
~ Would I play this card today?I have used him before and would use him today.
~ Can I use this on any team or does it require a specific build?
~ Are the dice pretty?

3. Spider-Woman: Playing Both Sides from Age of Ultron

When fielded, deal 2 damage to one opposing character with a printed fielding cost of 0.

I like cheap characters with good stats and good abilities. She can easily take out nuisance characters like a low level Dwarf Wizard or Oracle, or just clear some Sidekicks out of the way for your attack. Even though her fielding costs are not the best, as long as she’s level one or two, it’s manageable.

She also has a great defense for those times you really need her to stay in the Field Zone as a blocker. The higher the defense, the less damage that gets through from dice with Overcrush! And even though she’s not the kind of card I would use, I can’t bump her down on the list because of her overall potential. She’s got a great ability for those annoying Oracles and DWiz’s and I like her for that.

~ Is the purchase cost even with the stats and ability?Definitely for her ability, and I guess the higher fielding cost on level three evens this card out some.
~ Are the stats in line with the ability?Level one and two are fine. Seeing as how she’s not expensive to purchase, I can’t complain too much about her level three fielding cost.
~ Is the ability useful or is it too situational?There are lots of zero fielding characters that are really good and used often. I would say she’s more useful than situational, but her ability requires a specific condition.
~ Would I play this card today?Probably, but she’s not really my play style – I just see her overall potential.
~ Can I use this on any team or does it require a specific build?She can fit on any team without having to build around her directly.
~ Are the dice pretty?They aren’t ugly, but they aren’t my favorite.

2. Oni: Greater Giant from Faerûn Under Siege

When fielded, you may put target Action die from target opponent’s Field Zone, Prep Area, or Reserve Pool into the Used Pile. Cancel any effect of that die.

I just covered this guy for my 100th Confusing Card of the Week article. I absolutely love this card. There is not near enough Action removal or Action hindering in the game and I think this card is probably one of the best for Modern Age. He was almost number one on this list because of how much I like him, but his situational ability is what held him back. If your opponent isn’t using Action dice much, he’s just a big hitting character die for four energy.

Even though his situational ability has held him out of the top spot, it’s what propelled him to the number two spot. That’s because for every player that doesn’t use Actions regularly, there are almost twice as many that do. And with Unstable Miracle growing in popularity in my area, Oni could be a great response to it. It won’t stop it completely, but it helps stifle some of that Boomerang action. There just aren’t enough Action-reliant teams out there for him to steal that first place spot.

~ Is the purchase cost even with the stats and ability?Yes.
~ Are the stats in line with the ability?Yes, but level three might have been able to get away with a fielding cost of one.
~ Is the ability useful or is it too situational?His ability is situational, but it’s a common situation to come across, making his ability very useful.
~ Would I play this card today?I wouldn’t hesitate if I thought the meta would include half or more Action-based teams.
~ Can I use this on any team or does it require a specific build?He can find a spot on any team without needing his own support.
~ Are the dice pretty?They are gorgeous! I love the color and his die image is perfect.

1. Lockjaw: King’s Best Friend from Deadpool

While Lockjaw is active, before your Clear and Draw Step, name a non-Sidekick die. If you draw that die, gain 1 life and each of your Lockjaw dice gets +1A and +1D.

Lots of folks love the common Lockjaw, but this Lockjaw can actually get some use from his attack and defense bonus, because it happens on your turn and not your opponent’s turn. There are plenty of ways to manipulate a bag to increase your chances of drawing the right die. You are always allowed to look in your bag before you draw too, but you have to shuffle those dice up really well before you draw.

I love that he has life gain and a stat buff with his ability. Life gain is definitely useful later in the game, as is a stat buff if you’re hoping to get some damage in. Lockjaw makes for a great blocker too, which is good since you need him active before your turn starts to get the use of his ability. I feel like this card is a little underrated because everyone focuses too heavily on the common version. This guy has a place on a team out there and I hope more folks try using him.

~ Is the purchase cost even with the stats and ability?I think they’re generous.
~ Are the stats in line with the ability?More than generous.
~ Is the ability useful or is it too situational?Highly useful, but may need some bag manipulation to increase the odds of calling the right die.
~ Would I play this card today?I would put this card on any team that had room for him.
~ Can I use this on any team or does it require a specific build?He’s a great card that doesn’t need any support.
~ Are the dice pretty?Not really. I don’t dig the colors, but they’re thematic and the die image is cute.

Final Thoughts

While most of these cards are just good in casual play, there are a few gems for competitive play hidden away. One being that great Oni card! I’ve gotten a few ideas for teams from the cards on this list and I intend to build one of them for our Modern Age event this Saturday. I’m really happy that John P. suggested this article. This was a lot of fun to write and research and I look forward to doing another Top List article in the future.

What are your favorites on the list?Would you place a card differently?Let me know what you think!Leave me a comment here or on Facebook at Dice Dice Kitty!

Thanks for reading and thanks again to RetroBox for the use of their site!

Greetings Fellow Dice Fans!

This is week six of six for our Lockout League season. If you aren’t familiar with the Lockout League format, it’s a really fun format that allows for more creativity as the weeks progress. Each week, the first place player will have their entire team added to a Lockout List. Players cannot use any card on the Lockout List while building a team for that week. We tried something different this time (suggested by Brett). We started this Lockout League with a pre-Locked List. Players voted on cards from the previous season’s final list and the cards with the most votes started our Lockout List. Pre-Locked List is Italicized.

My Team

I wanted to give this Hawk-Dove combo a shot in this week’s Lockout League. I got to use my beloved Nasty Plot for some churn, and I put Haymaker on the team to pump up Hawk’s attack. Rocket was supposed to help me spin my Doves to level three and Captain America was supposed to help me gain a little bit of life and give me a blocker too. Flesh Golem was the KO engine for Dove, which works perfect if you can get Doves in the Field. S.T.A.R. Labs, Red Dragon, and Goblin Attack Force were my utility cards used primarily for their Globals.

Round One – Bailee R.

Bailee and I test played our teams to prepare for the tournament and I already knew I was at a serious disadvantage going in. Using Harley Quinn, Batwoman, and Huntress together is so nasty! Once Botwoman gets cycling, there isn’t much you can do to defend yourself against her. We were the featured match for round one, so you can see the teams in action on my YouTube channel.

Bailee went on to win the event, which would have gotten her list added to the Lockout List, but this was the final week.

Record: 0-1-0

Round Two – J. North

Here I was, sitting across from a very similar themed team to what I just played against. We both had awful rolls to start the game and we both struggled to get our momentum going. North got his team up and running long before I could even get my team to stabilize, which ultimately ended in my defeat. North used the uncommon Harley instead of the rare version that Bailee used. Both are highly effective and Carmine Falcone is a great choice in a format where players are fielding Sidekicks to get them out of their bags.

Record: 0-2-0

Round Three – Bye!

Spectator time! I got to dance around and watch all the other matches in the third round.

Record: 1-2-0Final Standing: 5th

I know I speak for many of the locals when I say that I’m relieved this Lockout Season is over. We won’t be planning another anytime in the foreseeable future. We were playing Lockout Leagues to help with the stale Unlimited meta prior to the announcement of rotation. We are just now getting around to the final week of that series of events. Most of us want to Draft and play Modern Age and maybe do some special events around the holidays instead of worrying about ban lists like this.

I still had fun and I definitely enjoy the Hawk-Dove combo when it works. I plan to build a Modern Age version of this team and hopefully I can get it to work a little better than this one. We all enjoyed the Lockout League and it may be a format we revisit in the distant future. But for now, our focus is going to be on Modern Age and drafting, and maybe a little Prime too.

What are some changes you’d make without changing the spirit of the team?
Have a build you like better?
Leave me a comment here or on Facebook at Dice Dice Kitty and thanks for reading!

You can find videos from this event and many other events on my YouTube channel.

Greetings Fellow Dice Fans!

I’ve just had the greatest weekend of Dice Masters! I went to this WKO with the intention of playing a non-meta win condition and just having fun with it. I wanted to focus mainly on chatting with old friends, making new ones, and trying to make the experience fun for everyone. I hope that everyone else had as much fun as I did!

I also want to wish everyone a Happy Valentine’s Day! Spread the love!

My Team

I changed my mind about Grodd – I’m a woman, and therefore change my mind frequently and for no reason at all sometimes. I had been test playing this team as well as Grodd and was really liking Grodd, but in the end, I’m glad I decided to play my competitive version of Gandhi instead.

This team earned a new nickname from a friend this weekend – Hugs. My win condition is Colossus. His ability allows each character die of level two or higher to deal two damage my opponent at the end of my turn. The idea was to field dudes and keep them there if possible and spin them with the Poly Global when I needed to. Poly was there as a potential purchase to help me get dudes into the field or get opposing dudes out of the field. Blink was a crucial piece to help me survive unblocked attackers or bring my taunted level 2-3 characters back to the field.

The rest of the pieces are either utility to help me get to Colossus or meta control pieces. Blue-Eyes and PXG were a must for Colossus to even get going. Elf Thief was an easy pick for the team because he costs two and if my opponent was using Rip Hunter’s Chalkboard Global, I could Rip a Thief on turn one for some early game momentum. Oracle was another easy choice. She is supposed to chill in the field and tax my opponent when they use a Global. Scarecrow was a card I added through test playing. I test played against Bard variants and decided that this Scarecrow was the best piece to add for what I thought would be a predominant piece on other teams. Cold Gun was a really easy choice over Dwarf Wizard. I’m so sorry, my poor DWiz… I loved you so, but in all my test playing with Mr. DDK, I ran into many problems with losing my DWiz to his Cold Gun and Imprisoned. I ultimately decided that an action die would give me more versatility than a character.

For my final card, I had a difficult time choosing. I didn’t know what to add to my team to help it or what I could add to slow my opponent to more my speed. There were a few options that I ran through. One of the options was RareCrow (Scarecrow: Hallucinogenic Vapors), but that would mean I would have to take off Scarecrow: Legion of Doom and I wasn’t willing to sacrifice him. Another option was Rip, just on the off chance my opponent didn’t bring it. There were loads of other options, but none of them seemed better than Rip. I don’t like Bard so he wasn’t even considered. I’m not a fan of Hellblazer, but I did consider him at one point. I decided to test play what I had, with Rip as my eighth card, against some Ring variants. I had way too much trouble with them, so I started digging for a possible response. Ronin came up as an option and I just wasn’t feeling the flow with him on my team. Then, like a glorious ray of sunshine, beaming through the clouds onto a field of pink and purple flowers, I remembered Lex Luthor.

I love my Grodd team and I want to play it in something big, but when the universe tells me to play something else, I listen. I always go with what I feel is right and Colossus just seemed right. I had test played both teams for a while and did all my adjusting to both teams while mulling over which to play. Grodd was a shiny new toy for me, but I’m glad I went with the team I first started working on.

Round One

Lauren H. was my first round opponent. Apologies for the glare on that gorgeous full art Joker. When I sat down across from Lauren, I was so happy to see her playing a team with a rogue win condition. I have so much fun against fellow players that use something outside the box. Her team was really fast compared to mine, and before I knew it, Angels with Helicarriers were smacking me in the face for double their attack. I think the highlight of the match was seeing two unblockable level two-three Angels with Helicarriers flying at my face while Nick Fury was active. Each of those Angels would have hit me for twelve damage. And seeing her team function like that was amazing, and absolutely a highlight.

I only survived the aerial onslaught because of Blink, which allowed me to push both of her attackers back. I had an Oracle and a Scarecrow in the Field Zone with Colossus, and Scarecrow was stopping her lower level Angel from attacking. She had her Invulnerability Global to increase their attacks in order to get around Scarecrow, but I kept energy handy each turn for Blink. She had hit me for quite a bit with a couple of Angels before I got my Scarecrow in the Field, and if not for Blink, she would have very likely defeated me. She played an excellent game and I couldn’t have asked for a better opponent for my first round. Lauren is a beautiful person and really fun to play against. I hope to see her again at a future event! Many hugs to my new friend!

Record after Round One: 1-0-0

Round Two

I got to play against Dennis B. in round two. I’ve seen him in the Facebook groups plenty and was excited to be playing against him! He was playing some characters that I’ve been tinkering with as well, Katana being one of them. I loved that he was using Superhero Registration Act – I think it’s a highly underrated card. But then I saw his Betrayal and Iron Fist. Both are not nice against my team. I wasn’t sure which way this match was going to go, but I was determined to have fun either way. Playing against someone as nice as Dennis, it’s easy to have fun and enjoy the match. I got super lucky and had really good rolls, while Mr. Dennis was not as lucky. He attacked me with Tsarina and Iron Fist, knocking my life down quite a bit, but then his characters weren’t being nice to him. I was able to get set up before he could get anything going for him. He needed to get a Hulk, or at the very least a Nightwing, to help clear my dudes out of my field.

I had fun, but it would have been more fun if his dice had been nice and rolled halfway decent for him. I get that it’s a dice game, but Tsarina is the meanest die out there. When she’s on a two fist side and I reroll her hoping for a character, she always comes back up as energy – usually a single fist. I watched that very thing happen to Mr. Dennis and I was heartbroken for him. I still enjoyed chatting with Mr. Dennis, who is super nice and a very good sport. I almost cry when Tsarina does that to me, but he took it in stride and pushed on in our match. He did the best he could with what his dice gave him. I really want to play against Mr. Dennis again one day because he’s such a pleasant person to chat and play with, which makes the game that much more fun.

Record after Round Two: 2-0-0

Round Three

I faced off against Craig R. in round three. He was playing a Bard variant, which I knew I would have some trouble against. We both had average rolls, with the exception of his Imprisoned die. It did not want to roll up an action face for most of the game. I was able to slowly chip away at his life total with Colossus until he finally got his die to roll on the side he wanted. He then scooped up most of my field, leaving me with only two blockers against a Bard army. When he attacked, he wasn’t able to deal lethal damage to me, which returned my characters to me from Imprisoned. I was able to get my Colossus, Oracle, and Scarecrow back into the field and all of them were level two or higher. This put his life total at six. I realized I didn’t have enough Cold Gun dice to stop all the Bards he had and I thought I was done for because of the massive army that was going to be attacking me next turn. I had forgotten my Scarecrow had returned to the field which would prevent all of his characters from attacking. He had a Dwarf Wizard in the field that had my Oracle blanked. We were about to sign match slips when a spectator pointed out that he couldn’t legally attack and KO me if my Scarecrow wasn’t blanked. We realized our mistake and continued our match.

I felt like the most horrible person in the world at this point, and I told Craig that if he didn’t win, I was going to feel even worse. He used the energy he had in his Reserve Pool and KO’d his Wizard in an attempt to roll and blank Scarecrow on his next turn. He also had an Imprisoned die to roll that turn too. He had to get his Imprisoned die in order to secure his victory, but it didn’t roll for him. He could have used his Wizard, but I could use my Cold Gun when priority was passed to me and KO or blank the Wizard. I was not happy about this victory at all. I felt so awful about it, and I still feel a little bad about it – even now. Craig was a real gentleman and very polite about the situation which I know couldn’t have been easy for someone that was trying very hard to qualify for Nationals. We did get to play again later – which definitely was more fun.

This was the army that was staring me in the face. It’s missing the Dwarf Wizard because this was taken after the match was officially over. I will discuss my opinion on Bard’s ability later, but all of these characters would have had a +12 to their attack and defense if those Bards had been able to attack.

I’m just glad that Craig did well and made it into the semi finals. He was a great player and I’m happy to have had the opportunity to play against him multiple times in this event.

Record after Round Three: 3-0-0

Round Four

I was so very excited to play against my fourth round opponent and she tried to make me feel better about what happened in my previous round. I’ve had plenty of conversations in Facebook groups with Michaela K. I loved the episode of TRP’s podcast where she was interviewed and was also a guest host. I heard she was making the trek to Owensboro and I couldn’t wait to meet her! I was lucky enough to get to play against her, even though I knew exactly what was going to happen when I saw that she was playing Beholder. Beholder was the biggest weakness for both Colossus and my Grodd team because I couldn’t tech for Beholder on either team without compromising my team. But Michaela is a great player and pretty much as nice as I expected! Our match didn’t go very long before she blew me up with Beholder and Front Lined Kobolds and Sidekicks. I did what I could, but it wasn’t much. A slow control team like mine does not stand a chance without RareCrow or an action tech like End of Days or Oppression Begins. But I couldn’t risk swapping one Scarecrow for another and even though I lost to Michaela, I think I made the right call in the end. My Scarecrow was way more beneficial in my other matches than RareCrow would have been. I don’t mind losing to a player like Michaela, especially since she was playing such a strong team. I’m still super excited to have met her and I definitely can’t wait to meet up with her again at a future event. Even if we don’t get to play against each other at the next event we’re at, it’ll be awesome just to chat with her again!

Congratulations to Michaela on her Top Eight finish!

She has her tournament report up on The Reserve Pool, which you can find, here. I love seeing multiple reports from the same event because it gives players a multi-perspective view of a single event. Please be sure to check out her article as well. I always enjoy reading her work.

Record after Round Three: 3-1-0

Round Five

Something pretty amazing happened in the fifth round. I got paired against the same fifth round opponent that I had last year! Josh K. is a super cool guy with a really nifty playmat. Josh and I had fun last year and this year was more fun. I was happy to see him playing another rogue team this year, and that Bard is not the nasty Bard, it’s Half-Elf Bard: Apprentice Order of the Gauntlet. Travis (Mr. DDK) and I like this particular version of Bard, so to see someone playing it at an event of this level made me very happy. It was even more awesome that Josh was playing it! He has a way with rogue teams and if you aren’t careful, he can have you KO’d before you know it. I was being careful and he still Magic Missiled me and attacked me Angels enough that before I knew it, I was at three life! Scarecrow saved me a lot in this game by keeping level one Angels from attacking me. I was using Polymorph to swap his level two-three Angels out with other Angel dice, putting them in at level one. He used his Enrage Global to boost their attack so he could attack with them. Poly-Global is great to use with Elf Thief dice and then feed them to Blue-Eyes, or attack with them, just to see if they get through. This was the only match that I remember attacking in, and if I hadn’t attacked those few times, the outcome would have definitely been different. Luck was on my side again in this match. He had rolled all three Magic Missile dice, got two of them on an action face, but he needed all three of them to secure a victory. With me at next-to-no life, and him sitting in single digits as well, I only needed to end my next turn. Using Poly Global on Thief dice and then cycling them is what helped me get my lower level characters up to Colossus range. I even used Poly Global on my level three Colossus to spin another level one character up, just to push that additional two damage. I ran the risk of him being easier to KO by doing that, but it was the right call.

I was so excited to see Josh and the other players from Indianapolis. They are a great bunch of folks and they’re always fun to play with. I look forward to playing against Josh again in the future and I can’t wait to see what uniquely awesome team he brings nest time!

Congratulations to Josh on his Top Eight finish! Josh finished Top Eight last year as well at Owensboro. I’m rooting for him to finish Top Four or better next year!

Record after Round Three: 4-1-0Top Eight Seed – 3rd

Top Eight

I couldn’t have been happier to see that Craig and I would be playing each other in our top eight match. I really wanted to play against him again, and we took special care to pay attention to all of our dice in these matches – lesson learned! I had some pretty terrible rolls, but Craig’s Imprisoned die continued to roll bad. His victories were relatively quick, even with the bad rolls on both sides. I couldn’t keep a character in the Field after he got one of his Imprisoned dice to roll an action face, which left me completely vulnerable to attack. His Bards made quick work of me in both games. We had much more fun in these matches. It didn’t feel as stressful and we just cut up with each other most of the time as we were more carefree and just happy to be in top eight. We both earned our foil, alt-art The Front Line and foil Big Entrance from making it to the top eight. The Big Entrance was the one card that I wanted really bad from this event because I use Big Entrance on lots of my teams.

I was so very proud of my team for doing so well for me. I was so very proud of Craig too, because he was trying so hard to get his Nationals qualification. There were going to be three qualifications given out from this event, meaning three of the top four players would qualify. As the matches around us finished, we realized that one of the top four already had his qualification, meaning all of top four would be qualified for Nationals! This was super exciting and I was so very happy for Craig. He fought his way up and earned his qualification.

It was a pleasure to play against Craig, and I’m so glad that he got his qualification from this event. He finished in the Top Four and I know how much it meant to him to achieve that goal. I’m also happy to have made a new friend in Craig as well as the other folks from St. Louis! They’re a great bunch of folks and also really great to play against.

Congratulations again to Craig on his Top Four finish, as well as his Nationals Qualification! He absolutely deserves that qualification.

Final Standing in Top Eight – 8th

Final Thoughts

So, I set out to use a crazy rogue win condition, play some Dice Masters, and write about the folks I played against. I think I accomplished that. I had so much more fun this year than I did last year. It felt like there was no passage of time as my friends were arriving and greeting me. You can’t get that warm, fuzzy feeling in any other competitive gaming community. I’ve been around a lot of those other scenes and none of them can even compare to Dice Masters. I got to play against an old friend from last year and lots of new folks. My opponents are no longer opponents – I call them friends. I’ve never seen a community of players like this and it makes my heart swell with joy. I also feel like I picked the best possible team to play. Colossus is definitely all Hugs. My buddy Joe said that I was playing Ponies without using Pony characters. I didn’t realize it until he pointed it out, but he’s totally right. My team matched that awesome MLP playmat! Lots of folks were commenting on how cool and unique it was and I totally have Mr. Glen to thank for that (Review article, here).

Now the world is not all full of sunshine and rainbows, though I wish it was. I have never been so upset in a match as I was in round three against Craig R. He was a really good sport about it and he was upset as well, but I think for different reasons. It really didn’t make me feel good to win that round and when I realized that I was going to win, I couldn’t hold back the tears. I’m super sensitive and wear my heart on my sleeve. But got to match back up in top eight and that was much more fun. So it all worked out in the end and I felt much better about it all after Craig defeated me in top eight.

As far as the meta goes, I didn’t go there with a meta team. Yes, I had meta control pieces, but my win condition is so far from the meta that lots of folks don’t know that card exists. I play different and unique win conditions in order to give those cards a chance to shine, even if every round is a loss, those cards were used and loved for a time. I didn’t go to win – I went to have fun. I feel like everyone should go with that mindset. We drove about three and a half hours, paid $15 entry fees, and had zero expectations about winning. The focus was completely on the fun for me. But Travis and I have discussed the state of the meta for hours upon hours with each other and our locals. We all dislike Bard, with a great passion. Bard should not have the ability it does for a character that only cost four to purchase. We hope they’ll errata the card to a While Active effect, so it won’t stack, but still be a very viable meta piece. If they don’t then I hope they errata it to something to keep it from being too overpowered. Bard’s ability to stack its buffs is just too much. As you saw in my picture above, Craig R. had a +12A/+12D buff to EACH character die. That was an impressive army he going. I just think Bard has too much power and not enough responsibility and he needs to be taught how to be responsible!

I didn’t have room for a Beholder tech, and if there had been a flood of Beholder teams, I would’ve been losing each match for sure. It was a risk I took, mainly because if I had to face a bunch of Beholder teams, I wanted it to be over quickly and not drawn out. I did put it out there on my Facebook that Beholder was my weak spot, but I honestly thought I’d see more Ring variants. I didn’t play against a single Ring team, but I know there were some there. I put a very specific card on my team to help me against Ring teams. Because of how specific Lex Luthor’s ability is, he was of no use to me the entire tournament. I basically played with a seven card team the entire tournament. But that’s part of the risk you run when you’re building and don’t know what the meta will look like at a particular venue. Cold Gun could have been useful against Beholder, but it’s not always the easiest thing to buy and you need them cycling consistently to keep yourself alive against Beholder.

The top eight at Owensboro consisted of my team, Josh K.’s rogue team with Protection Bard, Beholder/Imprisoned, a Mask Ring team, and four Bard variants. I’m happy that we only had four Bard variants in the top eight, but that quickly became the Bard top four slugfest. I’m totally not disappointed that I didn’t make it further, as I didn’t expect to do anywhere near as well as I did. But I thought at least one of the other non-Bard (I’m including Josh’s team as a non-Bard team) teams would make it. I’m proud of all the players in this event. They all played the best they could and I hope that everyone had fun. I didn’t have to try too hard to have fun because everyone was fun to be around!

I know how much it killed Travis’s soul to play with Poly-Venom Bard. He didn’t want to play it, but he wanted to do well and he felt that his Bard variant would get him at least into top eight. He ended up finishing second, losing to Mr. Craig H., in an epic defeat that made the entire crowd erupt into a huge uproar of excitement! They each had won one game and time had been called after they finished their second game and before they had begun their third game. They had to start their third game in turns. I wasn’t watching the game too closely because I always get so nervous when Travis is playing and I don’t want to make him nervous! I did watch the final turns of the match and saw where Travis had a lead on life (by one!) and Mr. Craig H. needed at least two Sidekicks to secure a victory. He rerolled three of his Sidekicks that were showing energy and two of them hit a Sidekick face! Travis jumped up cheering along with all the spectators! Mr. Craig has visited us in Dyersburg before and so Travis and I were thrilled that he won the event! Travis said that it wasn’t really a loss a for him because a friend won, and I couldn’t agree more. There were many hugs between the two of them, cheers, and lots of congratulations going around to everyone for a well-played tournament. Travis and Mr. Craig H. earned their Nationals qualifications in the top four alongside Craig R.

Travis did tell me that RareCrow was his MVP for most of the event, so I bet the KO King from Double Burst will be tickled to hear that!

Big Bang is a stand up venue with the most amazing Tournament Organizer, Mr. Jason A. Cory C. was a wonderful judge and they deserve some super kudos for rocking this event like pros. The event ran smoothly and quickly with a break after round three for lunch. All the players were prompt in finding their seats and everyone seemed to be having a great time. We had 22 players and most of the teams were either rogue or variants of meta teams with a personal tweak. The other employees at Big Bang are always helpful and very patient with folks. Thank you Big Bang for having a copy of IvX #1 for me to pick up! Our store is still waiting for our copies that were short from our order… One of the employees got down into the comic boxes with me, trying to help me find a copy of Uncanny Inhumans #6 (I still can’t seem to find it anywhere – besides online). Great store and great tournament location!

Congratulations again to all those that got their Nationals qualifications!

What have you built or seen that looked like fun to play?
What was one of your highlights from a match?
Leave me a comment here or on Facebook at Dice Dice Kitty and thanks for reading!

Greetings Fellow Dice Fans!

With the WKO quickly approaching, I decided to give one of my team considerations a test run in our tournament. If you watch the tournament videos on my YouTube channel, I have to apologize for the excessive amount of background noise. The store is very busy on Saturday nights and it’s really hard for me to play and mitigate the excessive noise at the same time. Hopefully, the regulars will get used to me filming and be a little more aware of their volume and conversation content. My irritation shows a little in the videos and I apologize for that as well. It’s very frustrating when you can’t hear what the person sitting across from you is saying.

You may hear me reference someone named Donatella, but that’s just my life tracker.

My Team

I want Lady Bullseye to work – really bad. But I think she’s too difficult to maneuver in such a fast meta. I do love Overcrush though and it’s almost as if Gorilla Grodd was made for me. Mr. DDK suggested using Tsarina and Guy Gardner with Grodd, which I thought was a good idea so I did it. This has been one of the team ideas I’ve been throwing around for the WKO, so I figured that this would be a perfect chance to test it. I added Elf Thief for Mask energy and little bit of control, which I never used – not in a single game. Cold Gun is there to help me get around nasty characters like Dwarf Wizard or Ronin. Rip, PXG, and Blue-Eyes are all utility cards. I chose Slander as one of my Basic Actions because it works like Cold Gun but doesn’t damage – just in case I need to blank a character without damaging it. It’s also one cheaper and doesn’t require specific energy, but it’s not Continuous like Cold Gun. I chose Invulnerability for it’s Global, and because I might be able to use its ability if I bought the die.

Round One

You can watch my first round match on my YouTube channel, here. I was up against North and the Unlimited version of his Satchel team. My first purchase was probably wrong in this game. I couldn’t decide between Guy and Tsarina and I Ripped a Guy instead of Tsarina. I think I would have been better off with Tsarina instead of Guy because when I rolled him on my next turn, I got stuck with him on a character face. I would rather have had a Tsarina since she doesn’t have to attack each turn. I also got a little purchase happy when I bought Grodd early game and I didn’t reroll any Sidekicks in an attempt to get a Shield to Rip him. I was left with a Bolt and I didn’t really have anything to use it for. I hate when that happens because I feel like I’m wasting resources. I ended up purchasing one of North’s Imprisoned dice to help me get around Ronin and any potential blockers, as well as removing characters he could spin down in order to prevent Tsarina’s ability damage. We did make an error in the game where I had Imprisoned his Ronin, but he didn’t return his Ronin after Tsarina damaged him with her ability. He should have gotten Ronin back and been able to use him as a blocker, since Imprisoned would have left before the Assign Blockers portion of the Attack Step. It happened again later when I was attacking for lethal damage. I didn’t realize that until watching the video and writing this report that we both overlooked that. If I had been paying closer attention to the card abilities, Tsarina would not have been part of the final attack and I would still have been able to claim a victory. I unfortunately won the first round with two unintentional game play errors, but without the video, I wouldn’t have noticed it.

Record after Round One: 1-0-0

Round Two

You can watch my second round match on my YouTube channel, here. I was facing off against Hannah’s Action Burn team in round two. This match was relatively short, and a bit of a revenge match from last week. The tables were turned this week and I didn’t roll as well as I would have liked, much like the trouble Hannah faced last week when her team wanted to give her issues. We both had a rough start, but Hannah’s team bounced back quickly and there wasn’t much I could do. I probably should have purchased as many of her Magic Missile dice as I could, just to slow down her damage output. I shouldn’t have Ripped my second Grodd, even though it didn’t matter much in this particular game, but I should have purchased more Guy and Tsarina dice instead. Sometimes games just don’t go the way you’d like them to and this was my moment for the bad rolls. Hannah did well with her comeback, and she made the right choice in clearing my field with her Magic Missile Global so that she could attack and secure her victory.

Record after Round Two: 1-1-0

Round Three

I got to face off against one of my own teams in round three. Olivia wanted to use a variation on my Girl Power team, so I let her borrow it. She fielded lots of Sidekicks early in the match and even purchased a she-Hulk early game. Black Cat was a troublesome character as she made me reroll some of the characters I needed to keep in the Field. Luckily, they all came back up on character faces, but the threat of them leaving the Field scared me a little. I Ripped and purchased a Grodd around mid-game, but I needed to get my Guys back in the Field. They were proving to be very difficult to work with since they are required to attack each turn. When it came time to start attacking, Guy came through for me. She blocked my first big attack of Grodd and Guys, which returned most of them to the Field Zone. I drew what was left of my Guy dice and some Tsarina dice and was attacking for lethal damage on the turn after my first major attack. She had mostly Sidekicks as blockers and no way to avoid the massive amount of Overcrush damage from my Guys.

Record after Round Three: 2-1-0Final Standing: 3rd

Final Thoughts

I hope that everyone takes something away from this report – especially from my mistakes. We are not defined by our mistakes, but by how we learn from them. I’m so glad that error was caught on video because this gives everyone a chance to review it and make mental notes about it so that they don’t make that mistake later, or have it made against them like North did.

Now, about the team itself. I really love this team. It’s definitely a top contender for what I’ll be playing at the WKO. I do not like Elf Thief though, and I’m probably going to replace him for either Constantine: Hellblazer or Antihero. While I like Cold Gun, I almost feel I don’t need it if I’m using Slander. Sure, it does damage and it possibly blanks a dude, but Slander blanks too. I definitely don’t think I need both, and I’m probably swapping one of them for something else. I just have to decide which one to take off the team and what to put in its place. I like Tsarina, Grodd, and Guy as the main core of the team, so that won’t be changing. It’s nice to know that I don’t necessarily have to have all of the pieces to win as they’re all great on their own. They’re just really silly together and I love it!

What are some changes you’d make without changing the spirit of the team?
Have a build you like better?
Leave me a comment here or on Facebook at Dice Dice Kitty and thanks for reading!

Greetings Fellow Dice Fans!

We had a constructed event with a twist for tonight’s OP Event. Everyone was required to play a ‘Cold’ themed character or Non-BAC on their team. I chose to add Killer Frost: Coldsnap to my Gandhi team for this event.

My Team

I love my Gandhi team because if it works the way it should, the characters on this team never attack. I’ve had this team for a long time now, just tweaking a few things here and there. Rip, PXG, and Blue-Eyes are all utility cards. Colossus is my win condition and Wonder Woman helps the win condition along. Elf Thief is a cheap Mask character that has an awesome ability, makes for great BEWD food, and can also feed Wonder Woman’s ability. I added Killer Frost for tonight and never had a chance to use her. I had hoped that she would come in handy to force a troublesome character into my opponent’s bag. I originally was going to use either Beast: Genetic Expert or Bane for his taunt, but when I thought about it, Multiple Man seemed like a better idea. His purchase cost, Swarm, and Max Dice were all major bonuses. Blink is on the team for the Global, to push back those heavy hitting characters and since this team isn’t concerned with attacking, it’s really only me that benefits from the Global. Big Entrance was just a default choice for me and could possibly help me get my Colossus a little cheaper. It would also help me get my Multiple Man dice for one Mask energy and add them to my bag.

Round One

Round one I had to face off against a Guy Rush team. I was fairly certain I wouldn’t win this match, but it wasn’t as much of a train wreck as I thought it would be for me. The Multiple Man dice that I kept on energy faces helped me Blink his Guy’s back and keep them in check while I tried to build up to my Colossus. I was able to defend myself really well with blockers and Blink and it came down to a single turn. I was at two life and my opponent was at twelve. I rolled all but one of the characters I needed for Colossus’s ability. My opponent was at two life now along with me. It came down to my opponent’s last turn. He needed to roll several characters to get past my blockers and Blink energy. He rolled plenty of characters and then purchased a Morphing Jar and fielded a Miri to add that extra punch. It was such a close game and without Blink, I would have been annihilated early on. I didn’t think my team would do well against an aggro team since it’s much slower. I was very pleased with the performance of my team.

Record after Round One: 0-1-0

Round Two

I knew just by looking at this team that I was probably in for a world of pain. I felt like I possibly had a chance defending myself with Blink. Blink is the bane of any Overcrush team, and it was definitely my savior here. My opponent had several rough turns where his Wolverine dice refused to roll character faces for him, but he played around it really well by KO’ing his Lady Bullseye and using Beholder’s Global to keep his Hulk Out stashed. The pressure he was putting on me kept me from being able to purchase extra characters, like Killer Frost. Every time I wanted to buy one, I couldn’t because I knew I’d need the Masks I had for Blink. It came down to the wire with this game too, but in the end I rolled up the characters I needed for Colossus’s ability to gain me a victory. This game was all about blocking vs not blocking and what characters to Blink. There were a few times I considered keeping a Bolt to KO the character that Lady Bullseye targeted, or even KO a character that was forced to block so that I wouldn’t get hit with a trillion bazillion damage.

Record after Round Two: 1-1-0

Round Three

Once again, I found myself sitting across from Mr. DDK. We always seem to end up playing against each other, and this game was possibly going to decide first place. He was the only player that was undefeated and I was 1-1 with decent tie-breakers. But I knew I had an uphill battle against his Bat-Bomb team. He had built it as a Prime team, but forgot one of his BACs. I know how good Bat-Bomb can be so I knew what I needed to do – buy all the Multiple Man dice and Blink his Dick Grayson back. Oracle was such a pain! It took me forever to get my purchases set up, but I had all six Multiple Man dice cycling through my bag or fielded. Even with Oracle, I was able to Blink Dick Grayson while blocking other characters, and still PXG once or twice. That was definitely thanks to Multiple Man who was my MVP for this event (excluding Colossus – since he is the reason I won twice). Mr. DDK would KO Alfred with my BEWD and use Bruce Wayne’s ability to take out my Multiple Man dice so that I couldn’t benefit from Swarm all the time. That was definitely a good move for him, but I did eventually end up winning with five Multiple Man dice at level two or higher with a level two Colossus in the Field Zone.

Record after Round Three: 2-1-0Final Standing: 1st

Final Thoughts

My tie-breakers boosted me to first place tonight, but every game was down to the wire and every game demanded a strategic plan just to stay alive. One mistake and that would be it – game over. I made a few mistakes in my first match and it cost me dearly. Killer Frost would have been a huge benefit in that particular game and I never purchased her. I love my Gandhi team and I wish I could make it work in a more serious competitive like a WKO, but it won’t work because of how slow it is to set up. I don’t know when I’ll play this team again, but it’ll likely go through another minor change or two between now and then. I’m thinking about keeping Multiple Man on the team and putting Oracle: Master Investigator in the place of Killer Frost. I hate playing the Lottery, so I definitely don’t want to put Parallax on this team. I already rely too much on Globals to make this team work, so I don’t want to add another. I just love playing a team that never attacks and never uses Actions to damage my opponent. Colossus is a unique character and I’m just happy I can make him work in a casual setting.

What are some changes you’d make without changing the spirit of the team?
Have a build you like better?
Leave me a comment here or on Facebook at Dice Dice Kitty and thanks for reading!

Greetings Fellow Dice Masters!

Yesterday, the PDC (Pro Dice Circuit website and Facebook) announced that they will be adding a Draft Championship format and a new constructed format called Prime Championship. The new Prime format is a constructed format that uses a set rotation.

Draft Championship Format

The PDC Draft Championships will be familiar, as it is the standard Rainbow Draft that we all know and love! This is a popular format across the Dice Masters Community, and the feedback that we received from players and stores was that everyone wanted a friendly, yet competitive component to it. All BAC’s will be legal for this format, so come prepared with all of your cards, or just bring your trusted two that you always play with!

According to the application link in the article, there will be Draft Kits available for stores to purchase. Please speak with your FLGS before signing them up!

I think a Draft Championship is a really cool idea and I’m really pleased to see the PDC doing this. I hope that WizKids will also add a similar format. Drafting in Dice Masters is a lot of fun, and it’s an ever changing game. No two drafts are exactly alike even if you draft a similar team, you won’t come up against the same teams you did before. Drafting is probably one of my favorite Dice Masters formats.

Prime Championship Format

The second format that the PDC is adding is their version of a constructed rotation, called Prime. We’ve all been anxiously awaiting further word from WizKids on a rotation for official WizKids tournaments, but until then we get a taste of what a rotation could look like on a large scale. This new Prime format is not an official WizKids format. For those that plan to play in WKOs and PDC events, you’ll need to test two teams! We are planning to alternate formats at our FLGS to accommodate both formats.

The PDC Prime Championships will focus on constructed play with the newest released sets, similar to the “Modern” format that is found in other CCG’s. For the first year of this format, all sets from World’s Finest forward will be legal including all OP, Team Packs and starters that were released with or after World’s Finest (Alt-Arts and Alt-Art OP’s rotate out with their original card). As additional sets are released, they will become legal for Prime play. Sets will be rotated out annually so that the format stays fresh, engaging, and open to new and seasoned players alike.

I have seen several players speculate about the Alt-Art cards and their legality in a potential WizKids rotation. I think that WizKids is reprinting certain cards, like Focus Power in the Archers OP Kit, so that players can have access to those cards in a rotation format. However, I have no issue or complaint with the PDC for excluding those reprinted cards. If WizKids keeps the reprinted cards in their rotation format, that will give us a different rotation format with different options for play.

The application link for the Prime Store Championship shows what the Prime Kit will contain. It’s very similar to the Draft Kit, except for the playmat wording and the Championship entry. Remember to talk to your FLGS before signing them up!

The dates for the events will vary depending on venue. The date ranges are:

Draft ChampionshipsFebruary 20, 2017 to March 19, 2017

Prime ChampionshipsApril 1, 2017 to May 7, 2017

So how does someone prepare and build for an event that’s so very different from an unlimited format?

If I don’t already have an idea of what I want my team to be centered around, I usually start with a win condition, typically using a character ability. I then try to add utility characters to help move the team along to my win condition, and lastly I choose my Basic Action Cards. I usually choose my Basic Actions Cards last because there are several that are practically staples. Most of those Basic Actions are from sets prior to World’s Finest, so for this new Prime format, the first thing I want to do is familiarize myself with which Basic Actions are available. None of the BACs in the currently allowed OP Kits are legal in Prime. Here is a list of the BACs that are currently legal in Prime (which will change between now and April):

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Set One) BACs

After I’ve familiarized myself with the current list of Prime-Legal BACs, I’ll move into the Character and Non-Basic Action Cards. From there, it’s just like building a regular team. The only difference will be which cards are available. As you’re building, remember that there are key staple cards that will not be available like PXG, Red Dragon, and Blue-Eyes. The Prime format eliminates the use of any Yu-Gi-Oh! or Dungeons and Dragons cards. This is probably the hardest adjustment to make. I’ve already run into that issue where I instinctively want to reach for a D&D card or YGO card and then remember that I can’t use those cards. Building a team without the usual staple cards will be a challenge for all of us veteran-competitive players. I can’t wait to start working on a Prime team for April!

There are still sets and starters that will be added into the Prime format. I would definitely suggest players begin familiarizing themselves with all the current Prime-Legal cards and maybe even practice team building before April.

Players should keep in mind that this is not an official WizKids announcement. For local play, TOs should continue to do what works for their scene. Talk to the players about the PDC’s Prime format and gauge their level of interest. Try not to alienate players that may not be able to afford to purchase newer starters for BACs. If someone wants to play in local Prime events but doesn’t have the appropriate BACs, they should ask their fellow players and see if someone would be kind enough to loan them some for the event. With the way WizKids has planned starter releases, most players will be able to keep up with the starters now. I think that was a great move on the part of WizKids, and it’s helping them set up for their own rotation.

I’m really excited to see how this new format changes up the competitive scene because while many of us are prepping for WKOs, we’ll also be prepping for Prime events. This will definitely open up more topics of conversation at WKOs and even local events. Our locals are already buzzing about this and we will be scheduling a mix of Prime and Unlimited events beginning in January 2017.

What do you and your locals think of the new PDC Championship formats?What do you think the cutoff for a WizKids rotation should be?Should WizKids rotate reprints with the originals?

Greetings Fellow Dice Fans!

For the first week of our Classic Avengers OP events, we played an Unlimited Constructed format. I really wanted to revamp my teams before I play them again, so for this event, I decided to try something new with something old.

My Team

Lady Bullseye is the main win condition, but Beholder can also assist with that and his ability is a great utility. Groot helps keep my Lady Bullseye from falling victim to my own Magic Missile. Everything else on the team is strictly utility: Wasp for her force block Global, Parallax for his Lottery Global, PXG, Blue-Eyes for his cost reduction Global, and Rip Global to help me prep something I buy. My main goal is to use Lady Bullseye as an Overcrushing attacker against a low defense character that was targeted by her ability. Magic Missile helps me clear the Field of other potential blockers that could help my opponent reduce the amount of damage from my attackers with Overcrush.

Round One

Round one was a whirlwind of Magic Missile actions and Lady Bullseye dice flying back and forth. My opponent was trying to get Storm and Lady Deadpool active so he could do extra damage with his Magic Missile dice. I was a little worried when I saw that super rare Lady Deadpool across the table from me. My opponent shot me with Magic Missile a few times before he could get a Lady Deadpool and Storm active. I wasn’t sure I could pull off a win once he got them both out, but my opponent made a fatal error in his blocking choices. He didn’t realize that he would take so much damage from blocking my Lady Bullseye that had the higher attack. He could only block one of my two Lady Bullseye dice that were attacking. His blocked character could only stop a small amount of the damage, leaving the rest to strike his life total along with the unblocked Lady Bullseye. That final attack secured the game for me. If he had blocked the other instead, he would have been at one life and possibly turned the game around. It was a fun match though, and I could have been toast at any point against his relentless Magic Missile dice.

Record after Round One: 1-0-0

Round Two

Round two was against Mr. DDK and his ridiculous Ultra Front Line team. This game went fairly quickly with him being the victor. He got an Oracle out early in the game, slowing me down too much. After a few turns, he was set up with two Ultraman dice in the Field along with several other characters. He rolled a Kryptonite and used it on one of my characters. Ultraman then used my Magic Missile on me, Hulk Out on himself, Imprisoned my entire Field, and Front Lined his whole Field. The amount of damage was massive and has left me traumatized. Red and Green are not colors I enjoy seeing together now because of Ultraman and Kryptonite. I think a well placed Cold Gun could possibly help against these shenanigans. I couldn’t get much going on my side during this game.

Record after Round Two: 1-1-0

Round Three

Round three was a super fun match! We duked it out until the very last turn after time was called and it was anyone’s game the entire time. Her Constantine and Dwarf Wizard were slowing and stopping almost all of my abilities and she had also gotten a Bard in the Field. The last piece she needed was Imprisoned, and when she finally got it, she couldn’t attack for lethal damage. I had worked at chipping away her characters in the Field with Magic Missile and Lady Bullseye when I had the opportunity to do so. But it seemed like, every time I would gain a little bit of footing, there was something new getting in my way. These are the games that are exciting and fun for me. I love the back and forth action and how the game can lean either way during the whole match. I had thought about buying her Imprisoned dice just to get Constantine and Wizard out of the way, but I decided not to because I kept thinking that I might be able to pull something off. She always chose the right character to name or was able to field the Wizard at the right time. This game was a huge challenge and it literally came down to the last turn, where I was lucky enough to attack for lethal damage.

Record after Round Three: 2-1-0Final Standing: 3rd

Final Thoughts

I really love the Lady Bullseye/Overcrush combo and I’m desperately trying to make it work. One of the problems that I’m running into is direct damage. Every direct damage Global, like the one on Magic Missile, can be used against my Lady Bullseye. I added Groot to help boost her defense and he works great, but he takes a few turns to set up. I really need a taunt and I’m not sure what to take off. The Lottery is crucial – It helps me reroll those Lady Bullseye or Hulk Out dice that I need. Blue-Eyes helps me get things cheaper. Rip is very essential and PXG is handy for ramp and bag manipulation. I can’t take Wasp off, because she’s part of the combo. I suppose I could swap Beholder out for Bane or Phoenix, but that takes away a potential win condition and very useful utility. I guess I could use Magic Missile to win if I had to, but it’s not ideal at all. Maybe I’m going about this all wrong. I could take off Magic Missile and add Imprisoned as a board clearing tool and then I won’t have to use Groot. I’m determined to make this character work on a team – I will exhaust all my resources to hopefully find a way!

What are some changes you’d make without changing the spirit of the team?
Have a build you like better?
Leave me a comment here or on Facebook at Dice Dice Kitty and thanks for reading!

Greetings Fellow Dice Fans!

Today, we’re going to take a look at Losing Life, Paying Life, and Taking Damage game mechanics, and not any one particular card.

Losing Life

Losing life is one way to decrease the life total of a player. Losing life is not the same as taking damage or even paying life. The loss of life is not something that you typically have an option to do. Typical reduction and redirecting damage methods will not work when you lose life.

Example Card – Spider-Man: The Amazing

This Spider-Man forces your opponent to lose half their life, rounded down. This loss of life is not optional. There are not any abilities that I can find at this time that specifically stop life loss.

Paying Life

When you pay life, it’s typically because an ability is requiring you to pay it for an ability or as part of a cost. This type of payment is not optional if you want to perform the action, unless an ability would allow you to forgo the payment.

Example Card – Jinzo: Trap Destroyer

His ability is an addition to a payment which means you can bypass paying this cost with an ability like the one on Beholder: Lesser Aberration(from Faerûn Under Siege), because he allows you to use two different Global Abilities for free. There is a great debate in the community over Beholder’s ability and we’re still waiting for an official ruling. But regardless of the Beholder’s ruling, paying life is still different from loss of life and damage.

Damage – Combat Damage and Ability Damage

Damage is another way to decrease the life total of a player. Damage is divided into two categories, Combat and Ability. Combat damage is damage that’s done to a player’s life total by a character’s attack. Ability damage is damage that’s done to a player’s life total by an ability that the character (or Action Die) has.

Example Card – Cheetah: Cursed Archeologist

Cheetah has an ability in her text box that says she deals one damage to the defending player when she attacks. This is a perfect example of ability damage. Even though she does the damage when she attacks, her ability is what allows you to do damage to your opponent. If Cheetah is not blocked, she then deals combat damage to the defending player in the amount of her attack value, either two or three depending on her level.

Example Card – Vicious Struggle

Vicious Struggle is an example of a card that only does one type of damage – ability damage. If my opponent has a Vicious Struggle ability active and I attack with a character and it isn’t blocked, the character will do combat damage to my opponent, but Vicious Struggle will do ability damage to me.

Ability damage can be done to characters by Action Dice as well, so long as the text on Action Card says that it can be done to a character.

Characters can deal ability damage and combat damage to each other as well.

Example Card – Hawkeye: Longbow

Hawkeye’s ability does his attack value in damage to a target opposing character when you field him. Hawkeye’s ability is what’s doing the damage to the character, it’s just using his attack value as the amount. Hawkeye will do either three or four ability damage when he’s fielded to a target opposing character. If this Hawkeye is engaged in combat, either blocking or being blocked, he will do either three or four combat damage (depending on his level) to the character he’s engaged with.

An ability that increases a character’s attack value is not considered ability damage. It’s increasing the amount of combat damage that the character can do. Anger Issues Global, for example, increases a character’s attack by one for a Fist Energy. The use of the ability increases the amount of combat damage that the character can do.

Official Sources

Final Thoughts

What type of damage is best for competitive play? What type is best for casual play? There isn’t a solid answer to that. Ability damage, like that from Vicious Struggle, has been fairly popular in competitive scenes. It really comes down to personal preference and player skill. Not every player can pilot a Vicious Struggle team successfully. Not all players like to attack. Try different cards and different teams to help broaden your scope of abilities and possibilities!

This CCW article obviously doesn’t cover every possible example or every card that uses these type of abilities. This article is meant to be a brief, descriptive guide for the different types of damage. If there are card interactions involving losing life, paying life, or damage that you need assistance with, feel free to message me or comment here. You can also find information on The Reserve Pool Forums.

Is there a card your confused on? Is there a combo that seems too good to be true? Leave me a comment here or message me on Facebook at Dice Dice Kitty and thanks for reading!

Greetings Fellow Dice Fans!

I apologize for how late I am in getting this article out, but with the my schedule this past week, I’ve had a hard time getting anything done. Our most recent event was an Unlimited Constructed event. I recorded some first turn information, but it’s a little silly to record and document all of that now that WizKids has implemented a much needed fix. Now we just need to hear about set rotations, but I still think rotation will be a little ways off.

My Team

The idea behind this team is get Cyclops in the Field Zone with some Sidekicks or other characters, then attack and use The Front Line for what should hopefully be a knockout. Dwarf Wizard and Oracle are on the team for control and to help me slow my opponent down. I use S.T.A.R. Labs for it’s Global instead of using PXG. Iceman helps me get Bolt energy for Invulnerability’s Global, if it’s needed. Parallax’s Lottery is supposed to help me reroll my dice to get the rolls I need, but I’ll discuss him later. Red Dragon helps me buy my Action Dice a little cheaper while getting in that point of damage each time. Some of you may be asking, why Blue-Eyes and Red Dragon? I use Blue-Eyes to KO my characters and buy Cyclops and Front Line cheaper, but sometimes, you don’t have that character to feed to Blue-Eyes when you want to buy Front Line. Using Red Dragon as well guarantees that I have an option if I don’t have a character. It’s important that I get Front Line dice, so I can’t always depend on having that Blue-Eyes food.

Round One

I went second in my round one match. I dislike Rush-centered teams because I typically can’t outrun them. Lucky for me, my opponent was a little out of practice and hadn’t played for a month or so. I purchased a Dwarf Wizard early and made sure to keep several blockers in the Field Zone. I used my Dwarf Wizard for Blue-Eyes and kept my Sidekicks as blockers until he fielded a Guy Gardner die. He attacked with Guy and I blocked with a Sidekick, so that I could roll my Dwarf Wizard and blank Guy on my next turn. That set the tone for the remainder of the game. I was below ten life, but was able to get a Cyclops fielded and attack with him to clear the Field Zone so all my attackers made it through unblocked and gained the +3A from Front Line. If my opponent hadn’t been so out of practice, he probably would have demolished me.

Record after Round One: 1-0-0

Round Two

I went first against Mr. DDK’s Avenger team. This team is very hard to defeat because it’s devastatingly fast against most of the teams I play. I had a strategy in mind to use against him this time – Dwarf Wizard! I only needed to blank his Nick Fury and then I wouldn’t die as fast. Things were going good a few turns in and I had his Nick Fury blanked. I draw my four dice and scoop up my Prep Area dice which gave me a total of seven Sidekicks, one Front Line, one Cyclops, and one Polymorph (his Action Die). Things were looking really good when I rerolled and ended up with Cyclops, Polymorph (I was going to swap out Nick for Ant-Man, just because his defense was much lower), two Sidekicks and a bunch of energy. The only problem was my Front Line didn’t reroll into an Action. I played the Lottery four times, trying to get that one Front Line die to roll on an Action Face.

I only needed the Action Face to win the game. I know when to cut my losses and move on, so I fielded my Cyclops and set up for my next turn, hoping that my opponent didn’t draw and roll the Front Line die I knew he would likely draw on his turn. I had enough blockers in the Field that I was able to defend the onslaught. I made a comeback on my next turn with a fresh Front Line die and earned my round two victory.

Record after Round Two: 2-0-0

Round Three

I went first against this Gobby/Ring team. Gobby is always scary, and not only did I have to worry about him, but my opponent also had Dwarf Wizard and Joker for me to deal with. I went straight for Cyclops and Front Line. My opponent tried to get his Gobby combo to go off before I could cycle Cyclops through my bag, but using his PXG helped me ramp into everything I needed by turn five. Cyclops cleared any resistance from his Field which left him completely open for a full hit from my powered up Cyclops and Sidekicks.

Record after Round Three: 3-0-0Final Standing: 1st

Final Thoughts

This is exactly the type of team I would take to a WKO. It’s got several meta cards, but with a twist. It’s like my Nova-Ring team from the WKO2, which uses Lantern Ring, but uses Dwarf Wizard and Nova as the win condition. Front Line teams don’t use Cyclops, but I like using him to clear the Field for my attackers. I fully intend to tweak this team to be more competitive against Rush type teams. If I was going to a WKO this round, I would probably being playing some form of this team. I love playing teams that have combos or a twist on a meta combo.

What are some changes you’d make without changing the spirit of the team?
Have a build you like better?
Leave me a comment here or on Facebook at Dice Dice Kitty and thanks for reading!